The Human Heart
by Yamiyugikun
Summary: Based on the second Tales of Phantasia OVA. Cless is sent to the past leaving Chester and Dhaos alone in the mausoleum. Their philosophical discussion on human nature inspired me to write this. Is human nature truly good, evil or both? What do you think?


The Human Heart

Outside the mausoleum where four brave heroes once sealed Dhaos, the earth trembled, rain poured, and thunder rolled. Inside its ruined interferer, in a high domed chamber that reached the heavens, a menacing evil loomed. It possessed a dreadful power beyond all human comprehension striking fear in the depths of the soul itself. A lone person wounded in the chamber cried out as the evil neared.

"No, I won't be afraid," Chester hissed to himself, collapsed on the floor, his back pressed against some rubble once part of Dhaos's casket.

He struggled to stay conscious, breathing heavily, arms strained as he brandished his bow, a hand reaching behind for his quiver. Trembling fingers locked an arrow between them, its end hooked in his bowstring. With the last of his strength he tried to pull back completely, only to have his tortured limb give out. His arrow hit fell hitting the ground tip first along with his heart that sunk.

"This…. this can't be…" Chester strained to say, his breath ragged and raspy like a person's death rattles before they died. "It…it wasn't…. supposed to be…like this…"

His lids grew heavier as his sight misted over. Blood from a head wound trickled down his face, staining perfect skin in a trail of crimson red. His head pounded, throbbed, he collapsed again leaving blood on the rubble behind, thick, dark and heavy.

The impending evil hovered above in a green aura of light closing in, terrifying. Chester's eyes shot wide-open staring death in the face, both beautiful and terrifying at once. Dhaos's hair, illuminated like the sun, tumbled down in gold locks to his waist. He floated nearer, his massive brown cloak billowing about. Lifted enough to reveal the demon lord's slender body, clad in tight black clothes with gold trim.

"Don't…. think you've won…" Chester groaned, barely able to stay conscious. "Demon Lord…"

Dhaos watched in silence, his alabaster skin radiating an eerie glow.

"Cless will return… and…" Chester summoned any remaining will in his voice. "…Kill you!"

Dhaos descended lower, only a few feet above Chester. In a deep poetic voice, its tone too musical to be evil, he uttered, "Foolish human."

"Raising swords against those who differ." Dhaos's icy gaze struck Chester, chilling him to the very bone. "Why do such things, human?"

Chester swore he'd die that very moment. Yet Dhaos's eyes were fixed, watching, harboring in their depths that deep unanswered question.

"To…kill monsters…like you…" came Chester's frail reply. Dhaos's presence tapped in him an inner wellspring of horror that turned all that all fatigue to fear, paralyzing his very core.

"Monsters," the demon lord's rich voice echoed, penetrating Chester's soul and any defenses known to his mortal psyche. "Is the monster not in you yourself?"

Poor Chester couldn't answer.

"Fellow humans kill their own brethren, do they not? They draw their swords, barbaric ignorant creatures. Full of greed and weakness, that what makes you dangerous." Dhaos's words referred to the evil in the human heart Mint once spoke of.

"A…Amy…" Memories of Totus aflame flooded Chester's mind, the smell of burned bodies, his sister's charred corpse, body parts strewn about from Malice's men who attacked soaking the soil in blood.

"Is…is this something humans would do?" Chester cried out to Cless in his flashback. "What did my sister do to deserve this?"

In the present, the deepest suffering in Chester's soul surfaced, breaking out with a vengeance like a damn held back a hundred years. He sobbed and sobbed, unable to move from the indescribable pain, a well of darkness having no escape.

"Pitiful human, suffering because of your nature." Dhaos vanished reappearing a hair's breath from Chester as a phantom come to life.

Through his eyes, the window to his soul, Chester could only cry out to Dhaos _help me._

For the first time in his long unending life, Dhaos realized, _they cannot even help themselves. _

"Let this misery end now," the demon lord proclaimed, his gold and brown cloaks falling over Chester motionless body.

Time stood still, the pain began to subside. Mystical energy enveloped his conscious, or what felt like his body if he inhabited one. He became aware of a life force, a sensation greater than his physical self, an aura impossible to describe. He thought to himself _its Amy. She's helping me cross over._

The energetic force gradually waned as the last of his wounds finally healed. Chester relaxed, feeling safe inside his body. Time passed once again. He stirred somewhere safe and warm. Not in the presence of a human but a being almighty and powerful whom weapons couldn't harm.

"A…Amy?" Chester moaned, half asleep, half awake. "Is that…you?"

Only an empty silence answered filled by the whirring of energy. Its vibration suddenly intensified like the pounding of fierce waves, as the will of the controller felt threatened, because now Chester awoke.

Chester found himself in the same spot where he thought that he died. In fact his body never moved an inch. Through half lidded eyes Chester saw a hazy glowing form. Dhaos knelt over, holding Chester trapped in his etheric field, simply with the intention of his mere thoughts alone.

"Dhaos…" Chester whispered, too tied to yell even though the demon lord healed his body.

No human had ever called Dhaos by his name on a personal level.

"Why?" came the came the question, escaping Chester's parted lips.

The demon lord's response came with the slightest inclination of his head and his cold gaze fell upon Chester like the moon on a frosty night. "Pity, foolish one," he said in a sorrowful tone over the malice in his unearthly voice. "So you may struggle to live once again."

"Is that the only reason?" Chester gritted his teeth in anger, still held captive by Dhaos's auric field.

A wicked smile crossed Dhaos's sinister features.

The moment the Demon Lord's baleful stare struck the young archer a crackling split the air. Further back in the high domed chamber, where Dhaos was once sealed in a casket, a column of green light materialized, deep emerald in color. In the green four figures appeared time traveling back from the past.

"DHAOS!" One of them, a youthful swordsman's voice, reverberated through the chamber shaking its walls with his rage. At last Chester's friends returned.

Their sudden appearance caused Dhaos to lose his concentration and fixed hold over Chester.

The archer sprang to his feet in a gesture of triumph. "I refuse to believe human nature is completely evil." Chester spoke with a firm conviction strengthening his soul. "It's true that there's evil in the human heart. Why else was my village destroyed and my sister killed?" His pain was visible as sorrow churning across his face, but the goodness in Cless's heart gave him a reason to live.

A firm step carried Chester forward as Cless charged from behind with sword in hand closing in on Dhaos. "But not all human hearts are evil. Not his!" Chester cried, referring to Cless passionately.

Determination burned in Cless's eyes, two pinpoints of fire that knew no bounds. His very motion seemed to cut through time and space as he sailed towards Dhaos swiftly. The single ounce of compassion Dhaos might ever feel in his demon heart evaporated like the dew on a blade of grass before the morning sun.

"See how that fool attacks?" remarked Dhaos mockingly under his breath. "He's a perfect example of all humanity and their barbarous nature. Humans are truly evil from the bottom of their hearts, so they must be destroyed!" His white flesh paled with anger, intensifying its already eerie glow to that of a banshee's from hell.

"You call us pitiful and foolish, but it is you I feel sorry, Demon Lord. Because it is you who doesn't realize that in our struggles, we do our best to live a meaningful life, in spite of life's sufferings," Chester countered, victorious in his pose and proud in spirit. Perhaps the collective spirit of humanity spoke through Chester in those words about the human condition.

By the time Cless finally closed in, Dhaos vanished out of the mausoleum escaping to the future in a beam of light. Arche, Mint and Klarth soon caught up to Cless.

"Chester!" cried Cless, embracing his dear friend amongst the rubble. "I came back, for you." Affection for his childhood kin flowed in the cadence of his voice and his face glowed with love.

Those large brown eyes greeted Chester once again. Chester's heart skipped a beat pounding hard in his chest. He waited for this moment for what felt like an eternity, Cless's return. Did Cless come back for him alone or the sake of all humanity? For whatever reason Cless did, Chester liked to think it was for him. After all, he valued Cless as the person closest to him in life since Army passed on that fateful day.

"It's good to see you again, Cless," Chester replied softly, closing his eyes, sinking into Cless's armor over his chest and their cheeks brushed. The heat between their skin reminded them that no obstacle, even time itself, could break their cherished bond.

End


End file.
